


Some Snow Angels

by intrajanelle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cameos by other Avengers - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-05
Updated: 2015-03-05
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3483335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intrajanelle/pseuds/intrajanelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 1929, Steve just wants to ice skate before winters over. Bucky makes it happen. </p><p>In 2015, Bucky doesn’t remember how to ice skate. Steve takes him anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Snow Angels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [annaincognita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/annaincognita/gifts).



(1929)

 

The winter of 1929 was a cold one in New York, especially in the outskirts of Brooklyn. It had rained for the past few months. So, by the time the cold front moved in, the water that had settled into the cracks of the streets and buildings expanded into ice, and did its very best to warp half the city.

 

Everything looked a little crooked to Steve Rogers. But that could have had something to do with the more personal kind of cold that had made itself right at home in his lungs. At 10 Steve had already survived Scarlet fever, Strep, Rheumatic fever, Pneumonia, and a handful of severe asthma attacks. He was very jaded in the art of being sick, and yet he never got tired of making it very clear that he was fine, just fine, so why can’t he go outside and skate with the other kids?

 

Bucky, who was 11, and therefore considered himself the voice of reason between the two of them, visited whenever he could. He always tried his best to reassure Steve that he wasn’t having any kind of fun at all without him.

 

According to Bucky, even though the orphanage they lived in had a frog pond in the backyard and some big rich philanthropist named Bark or Clark or Park or whatever had donated a dozen new skates to their very institution a month ago and all the other boys and girls, including Bucky, had gotten to skate a ton since the pond had frozen over, and Steve had to watch from the infirmary window while choking on phlegm and swallowing down nasty medicine and pretending that he wasn’t jealous, Bucky wasn’t having any fun at all. He couldn’t skate well. The ice was cold. And even if Steve could see him smiling from where he was propped on his pillows, Bucky promised he wasn’t missing much.

 

Still Steve was sore about it. He’d been in the orphanage four years, four winters, and all four he’d spent sick while the other kids played in the snow. This was his first winter with Bucky, and even though both of them had lost a lot, in the past year alone, Steve wanted to be able to enjoy what was left. He wanted to get better and learn how to skate with his best friend.

 

As the weeks turned into a month turned into February, it looked like Steve wasn’t going to get his wish at all. Until the morning he woke up with a clammy hand over his mouth. At first Steve panicked because he couldn’t breathe—and he honestly thought this was it, his lungs were giving out, he was gonna join his momma in Heaven, and he was braver than brave but still scared to die. But then Steve panicked because it turned out someone was suffocating him and no one was gonna make it hard for him to breathe but himself, that was just fact. He flailed and tried to bite the clammy hand but then Bucky’s face was hovering over him, a finger to his lips, and Steve went still as if all his strings had been snipped.

 

“Bucky?” Steve said as soon as Bucky pulled his hand away.

 

Bucky shushed him dramatically and then ducked again. Steve could hear Sister Agatha on the other side of the infirmary door, her words muffled as she spoke to another Sister. The light outside the window was soft and new. Sunrise.

 

“What are you doing?” Steve whispered.

 

“Kidnapping you,” Bucky said, grinning. His hair was tousled. He needed a trim but no one had put scissors to his head since his ma, before she passed. And Bucky liked it that way.

 

Sister Agatha’s heels clicked down the hall as she led whomever she’d been talking to away from the infirmary.

 

Steve sat up and Bucky dumped an armful of clothes on the bed.

 

His bed, newly occupied by a wardrobes worth of winter clothing, Steve clambered to his feet. His bare toes wrinkled because of the chilled tiles.

 

“Get dressed,” Bucky ordered.

 

“Where are we going?” Steve said, already pulling the coat over his pajamas.

 

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky said, mock horrified, “hasn’t anyone ever taught you what a surprise is?”

 

Steve laughed and shoved at Bucky’s shoulder, but the laugh turned into a wheeze and soon he was doubled over, leaning on the bed. Bucky’s hand pulled on his elbow, keeping him upright. His face was worried, serious, all teasing wiped clean.

 

“I thought you were getting better?”

 

“This is better,” Steve insisted, pulling the pants on one leg at a time, right over his pajamas. “So? What’s the surprise?”

 

Bucky helped Steve put on gloves and a hat and thick socks, to the relief of his toes, and then wrapped a long scarf around nearly his entire head. Then he led Steve downstairs by the hand and sat him on the bottom step.

 

Most of the sisters were probably still asleep. And the other children definitely were. Except for the faraway clinking of pots and pans echoing from the kitchen, Sister Agatha starting on breakfast, the orphanage was quiet. It felt strangely empty for a place so many people called home. In that moment it was very easy for Steve to pretend he was back in his apartment with his momma, that she was cooking breakfast before an early shift at the hospital and Bucky was fetching him so they could walk to school together. Steve knew, even at 10, that aching for things as they once were would only make him sadder. But he couldn’t help it.

 

He could tell Bucky knew what he was thinking by the way he squeezed Steve’s hand extra firm before he let go.

 

“Close your eyes,” Bucky said.

 

Steve did, he didn’t even try to peek.

 

He could hear Bucky walking toward the closet under the stairs. He heard the door open and the crashing of a large number of objects before Bucky closed the door again. When Bucky came back and before he told Steve he could look, Steve felt the cool metal blades of the skates as they were placed in his hands.

 

“Bucky,” Steve said, looking down at the skates in wonder.

 

“I know you’re still sick but…” Bucky was looking down at Steve, while biting his lip. His eyes were wide and hesitant. “I wanted to be the one to teach you,” he said, but he said it like before it’s too late. And Steve wasn’t convinced that winter was the thing Bucky was worried about ending soon.

 

“I thought you didn’t know how to skate good?” Steve said.

 

“I didn’t,” Bucky said. “I got one of the girls to teach me. Bernie? The one with the pretty brown hair? It’s a good thing it’s been such a long winter. You got a pro for a teach, now.”

 

Steve found that he was very rarely at a loss for words. When his mother died right after his father he’d screamed the entire way to the orphanage. When Bucky had joined him earlier this year after the death of his parents Steve had spent months trying to distract his friend from his loss. Through years of sickness Steve had learned to keep his chin up. Incoherent at times, maybe, but never speechless. And yet now, with shiny new skates in his hands and Bucky’s crooked grin Steve could hardly rub two words together. He was just so grateful. He didn’t think he’d ever been this grateful for anything in his entire life.

 

“Well,” Steve said, clearing his throat. It felt oddly nice to be choked up with emotion rather than phlegm. “Help me put them on then.”

 

Bucky did. And then he put his on. And then at five in the morning on a Tuesday they both snuck outside, thumping through mounds of snow before they reached the smooth surface of the frog pond.

 

Steve thought it looked like a bowl of cream, the kind his momma had watered down to make it last longer, familiar and homey. He took one step onto the ice and skidded, landing on his side.

 

Bucky was in his space in an instant; pressing his hip into Steve’s waist, levering them both until they were sitting. Even with the amount of clothing they were bundled in, the ice was still cold on Steve’s ass, digging relentlessly into his tailbone.  “Steve?” Bucky was saying. “Stevie? You okay? Talk to me.”

 

Steve couldn’t talk. His lungs hurt, but for once in a good way. It was as if getting the air knocked out of him had the added effect of knocking the sick out of him too. Good riddance. Steve put his fingers over Bucky’s, pressing both of their hands into his shoulder, and started to laugh. His breath swirled around them in peals of condensation as he hooted and Steve couldn’t see Bucky’s face, but he could tell he’d relaxed from the way his grip had loosened.

 

When Steve turned to look Bucky was grinning. His eyes were still wrinkled, concerned seemed to be his neutral lately, at least when it came to Steve, but he was grinning and the tension had left his shoulders.

 

“You little punk, you scared me,” Bucky said softly.

 

“I think I’m a pro now, Buck. Your teaching is no longer needed,” Steve said.

 

Bucky shoved him so daintily that Steve fell over onto the ice in exaggerated protest.

 

“Augh, that’s it, this is the end of the line,” Steve groaned, holding his arm as if Bucky had actually done some damage.

 

“Har, har,” Bucky said, standing. “Get your scrawny ass off the ice. It’s time you learned to skate, proper.”

 

For the first twenty minutes Bucky instructed Steve on how to wobble in a slow but steady circle, with his hand firmly wrapped around Bucky’s shoulder. The ice was bumpy but cleared of snow and their skates made four thin loopty loops around the pond as they went. When Steve’s feet started to hurt Bucky taught him to hold his feet straight so the blades weren’t curved outward, and to bend his knees. That in turn made the going much easier and Steve was confident enough to take his hand off Bucky’s shoulder, which landed him flat on his face.

 

This time, instead of fretting, Bucky was the one to laugh.

 

He threw himself down beside Steve, spread his arms, and made a snow angel right there out of the fresh flakes they’d hewn from the ice. And his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were warm and there were wings at his sides and snow in his hair, and Steve didn’t recognize it right then, but years later he’d look back and know this was the moment he’d fallen in love with James Buchanan Barnes.

 

(2015)

 

“I want to take Bucky skating,” Steve said. “Nobody tell Stark. He’ll probably try to buy Rockefeller Center.”

 

“Roller-skating?” Clint said, perking up. He’d been slumped over the couch with a suspicious amount of Band-Aids on the right side of his face. “I haven’t been roller-skating since that time in Hoboken—“

 

“For good reason,” Natasha said. “You’re not going.”

 

“Why were you in New Jersey?” Sam shouted from the kitchen.

 

Clint looked ready to tell the whole gruesome story but Steve cut him off.  

 

“Not roller-skating. Ice skating. It’s January. I want to take Bucky ice skating.”

 

The room was silent for a moment. Some of the Avengers, sans Bucky and Stark who were running field drills in one of the towers many workout rooms, but namely Sam, Clint, and Natasha, were gathered on the common floor. Sam was making brownies in the kitchen, the smell of which had drawn Steve downstairs in the first place. It was one of those quiet winter days, just after the holidays, that was cold and sleepy. With no bad guys to fight most of his team was lounging around Tony’s expensive couches, watching animated movies, and eating a lot of Sam’s food. Right now Lilo & Stitch was muted on the TV, and Sam had been baking since he’d arrived at the tower that morning.

 

Steve munched on a scone and leaned back in an armchair as his announcement settled among his friends.

 

“I’m pretty sure Stark already owns Rockefeller Center, if that makes you feel any better.” Natasha shrugged.

 

“What brought this on?” Sam asked, walking into the living room as he wiped his hands on his apron. Tony had gotten him the apron. It was red with golden frill and said ‘Call Me Mrs. Tony Stark.’ Tony thought he was hilarious.

 

A lot had contributed to Steve deciding on ice skating. It had started a few months ago, from the morning Steve woke up in his and Bucky’s apartment to snow, the first snow of the year. The first snow of this century with Bucky. It was so like Bucky’s first winter at the orphanage, especially when Bucky had woken up, saw the snow, and immediately wrapped Steve in an assortment of winter clothing so they could walk under the flitting snowflakes.

 

It had been almost a year since Steve had found Bucky again. Months since he and Sam had tracked Bucky to a warehouse full of dead scientists and Steve had taken Bucky home. It had been a rough road, but despite all they’d been through they were together now. And it seemed only natural to celebrate the small miracles.

 

Steve wanted to celebrate the winter. He wanted to celebrate it with Bucky and with ice skating. There was hardly any other option.

 

“A long time ago Bucky taught me how to skate. It’s something I want to do with him again,” Steve said.

 

If Steve didn’t know better he’d have said there was a single tear rolling down Clint’s Band-Aids. Natasha was patting his shoulder.

 

Sam, ever the responsible one, sat on Stark’s coffee table and asked, “How can we help?”

 

It turned out they could help by not helping at all. Or rather, they could help by maintaining the appearance of not helping and doing their own thing while simultaneously keeping Tony duly distracted. Tony meant well, but he’d also formed a strange and intangible friendship with Bucky that meant every time Bucky so much as tried a new restaurant Stark tried to make the experience as over-the-top as possible. With Tony at the movies with Pepper, Rhodey, and Sam. And Jane taking Thor to her lab for the day. And Clint and Natasha going with Bruce to his Yoga class, or rather, Natasha babysitting Clint and Bruce at a Yoga studio. Steve was free to have Bucky all to himself.

 

They took the F train headed South to Coney Island. Bucky ensconced in a heavy winter coat, a fluffy hat, gloves and boots and a bright red scarf. Steve, wearing a light jacket and a baseball hat pulled low over his eyes. Bucky didn’t ask where they were going, warm and satiated with a hot chocolate cupped in his hands. And for once, hardly anyone recognized them on the subway. The ones that did were little kids, because they were small enough to look up into Steve’s eyes, and bright and idealistic enough to connect Steve to the Captain America on TV.

 

Steve smiled at a little girl whose mouth dropped open when she recognized him. He put a finger to his mouth and went, “Shhh,” until she giggled.

 

The girl’s mother, juggling a baby on her hip and a bag full of groceries, thanked Steve when he offered her his seat. And Steve nodded and smiled and hoped he wasn’t being rude by pulling the brim of his hat down further.

 

Bucky stared over his scarf at the little girl who was still standing just next to Steve, everything below his nose was covered with the thick fabric but Steve knew he was grinning from ear to ear. He stood and offered the girl his seat. And then they were at 15th Street and Steve was leading Bucky off the train, just as the little girl leaned over and whispered, “Mama, mama! That man was Captain America! And his sidekick.”

 

Bucky scowled as the train doors closed behind them and Steve laughed the entire way to Prospect Park.

 

It wasn’t where they’d first learned to skate. But Steve was fairly positive their orphanage had been torn down years ago and turned into a shopping center. The park was in Brooklyn and the air smelled like snow and the skating rink was empty, just for an hour, just for them. It was close enough.

 

As Steve took Bucky’s hand and led him toward the LeFrak Center Bucky’s eyes smoothed over the low concrete canopy that shielded the ice. It was painted a deep blue but for swirls of silver that connected scattered light bulbs like the tails of comets. It would be like skating under a mess of stars.

 

The woman at the front desk smiled as Steve pulled his hat off. She was a pleasant middle-aged woman with warm brown skin and thick glasses.

 

“Captain Rogers, right on time,” she said, shaking his proffered hand. And Steve recognized her voice as the woman he’d spoken with on the phone. “We’ve reserved the ice for you. And we don’t normally allow this kind of thing so try to keep it hush-hush.”

 

“We really appreciate it, Mrs. Bradley,” Steve said, rubbing the back of his neck.

 

“Oh, its not a problem at all.” Mrs. Bradley smiled. “You boys deserve to be spoiled. All the good that you do.”

 

Steve saw Bucky frown out of the corner of his eye and he squeezed his hand. Bucky looked up and Steve nudged him, daring him to smile back. Bucky didn’t, but he did smirk, his right hand tightening in Steve’s left.

 

Mrs. Bradley showed them where they could borrow skates and then bustled back to her desk to fend off visitors for the remainder of their stay.

 

Tying his skates was a little like tightening his combat boots, pulling all the laces tight and looping them through their hoops. They needed to be sturdy enough that the skates wouldn’t move around too much but comfortable enough that he wouldn’t come out of this with a new collection of blisters. This balance was something Steve had become an expert in after years in the army and then S.H.I.E.L.D.

 

Bucky had no trouble with his skates either. Which kind of made Steve sad. He hadn’t wanted Bucky to ever be reliant on anybody, but he had expected Bucky to go through a period of recovery where he could lean on Steve. And Bucky had started recovering and he did need Steve, but after an entire life helping others, and another life being treated like an object, a weapon. Bucky found it very hard to rely on anyone. He could take care of himself. And Steve was so happy for that. But he’d hoped for just a single moment that Bucky would show a little weakness, so that he could help Bucky like Bucky used to help him. Like he still helped Steve. Every day of their lives.

 

That. And he really wouldn’t have minded getting his knees dirty.

 

It wasn’t until Steve looked up from Bucky’s perfect laces to see Bucky smiling fondly at his own handiwork that Steve realized with a sharp tug that he was helping. Maybe not the way he wanted to. But somehow, impossibly, helping.

 

They walked over to the ice less than gracefully. Steve had forgotten how much wearing  skates felt like balancing on knives, and while the skates they were wearing now felt far sturdier than the skates they’d worn in 1929, Steve took the excuse to grab Bucky’s hand. And they leaned on each other as they stared out at the rink.

 

“I don’t remember how to do this.” Bucky admitted. “I know we did it. You were real little and I snuck you out of bed. The nuns yelled at us.”

 

Steve felt something warm curdling in his belly. As it always did when Bucky remembered something about their childhood.

 

“Sister Anne-Marie yelled at us.” Steve prodded him. “Sister Agatha laughed for two whole weeks.”

 

“That’s cause we tried to run away when they found us. And our skates got stuck in the snow. They had to pour two kettles of boiling water on our feet before we could move enough to take the skates off.”

 

Steve laughed. “That was a good day.”

 

“Yeah,” Bucky said, squinting. “I still don’t remember how to skate.”

 

Steve shrugged. “Neither do I. It’s been awhile.”

 

Bucky looked at him, eyebrow raised as if to say: “Really, Steve? Awhile? You think you’re funny punk?”

 

And then, to Steve’s surprise, Bucky actually shoved him, said, “You think you’re funny punk?” and stepped out onto the ice like he hadn’t just filled a tiny hole in Steve’s chest.

 

Bucky was as beautiful on the ice as he ever was. Even when he veered from the straight line he’d been gliding in, tried to turn a corner, and fell flat on his face.

 

Steve tried to rush over to see if he was okay and landed beside him in a heap of limbs. So he really had no room to judge.

 

They lay on the ice for a minute, on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.

 

Bucky slowly raised his arms, spread his legs, over and over, formed the wings and the long dress. His skates lightly scraped the ice at his feet to make the hem. His scarf had fallen over his head, to make a halo.

 

Steve turned so he was leaning on his elbows, staring down at Bucky.

 

Bucky stilled when he looked at Steve. He had snow in his hair and his cheeks were flushed and the wings at his sides were barely there, translucent things. Almost already a memory.

 

When Bucky leaned up and kissed Steve, his lips were cold and chapped. Steve almost cried. Bucky almost laughed at him.

 

When they finally got back to skating it was as if it hadn’t been eighty years. They were together and they were in Brooklyn and in the end, that’s all that had ever mattered.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic so long ago. Like two months ago? It took so long. I apologize if the ending feels rushed I really just wanted to be done writing this so I can finish other things. Ah, and I've never been to Prospect Park or the LeFrak Center. Google images is my best friend. I hope my descriptions aren't wildly inaccurate.
> 
> I'm dedicating this to Joanna because she helped me figure out the New York subway and also took me ice skating in the first place, where I saw the CUTEST CHILDREN making snow angels in the middle of the rink. Which inspired all of this. Thank you Jo. I promise I will finish the Annie fic eventually.
> 
> There's a reference in here, if you caught it, to one of my absolute favorite Stucky fics of all time: "A Long Winter," by dropdeaddream and WhatAreFears. I highly recommend it!
> 
> Also, thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed this giant ball of fluff.


End file.
